


the importance of leopard spots

by yogurtgun



Category: Glass (2019), Split (2016)
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Cunnilingus, Drugging, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Russian Doll AU, Time Loop, Time Travel Fix-It, Vaginal Sex, author disregards OCD to write sex, not underage due to time-travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 16:16:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21148583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yogurtgun/pseuds/yogurtgun
Summary: After failing to save Kevin from being killed in front of the Hospital, Casey finds herself thrust back in time when she first met him -- back to the time when Dennis kidnapped her with Claire and Marcia. It gives her a chance to save him properly. Dennis on his part, just want to be good and do what he's told.





	1. Katabasis

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Eryn and Taylor, two very good friends who were very kind about be thirsting over the Beast. So there's that. Unbetaed.

Her hands are slick with blood. Messy ribbons of it run down Kevin’s side, rushing to kiss the concrete that holds their banquet like white tiles a shattered bottle of red. The wound isn’t large; a pinprick in comparison with the three she’d left herself. The three that had healed. This one isn’t healing. This one won’t ever.

Instead of trying to help himself, one of Kevin’s hands is wrapped around her wrist, simply holding it in comfort. His strength, she can feel, is slowly leaving him. They have already been here before.

“Casey,” he says, brushing the fingers of his other hand just east of where tears would have been gliding down her cheeks. She hasn’t got any tears left to cry. She has cried a lake of them, and then drowned.

“It’s alright. You tried. We... _ I _know you tried. So many times. It’s just not meant to be.” Kevin’s eyes are tired. His head rests on her knee.

The first time she’d done this she’d been afraid of getting blood on her clothes, somehow, instinctively pulling away from death and dying. Now, she coils around him until she can’t pull him any closer to her.

“Tomorrow,” he sighs. “Tomorrow you’ll open your eyes and you will let me go. I will be dead and you will be in your new home, and you’ll be alright.”

Casey presses their foreheads together. The tears, despite herself, come anyway. Kevin’s grip loosens on her hand, and she can hear the last racked breath leave his body, just before he stills.

There are hands on her, after the fact: police pulling her away, her guardians worrying, Mrs. Price’s grip in the station. She waits for the loop to destabilize. There are rules to it, after all, and she has done this so many times before that she can anticipate the change, the shift, the time lived going back to the start of her hellish three days.

Instead of nausea she feels whenever she’s breaking the rules -- the same sensation she gets when the loop breaks when she’s doing something it can’t accommodate -- it’s the hands of darkness that welcome her, narrowing her vision of the golden arches of the train station until her consciousness is snuffed out.

#### -

Surfacing in violent. Casey’s ripped from the cocoon of gentle blackness and pushed into reality where all sensations of living -- smelling the staleness of plastic, hearing voices behind her laughing, the touch of fabric on her skin that’s far too cold to be comfortable -- filter in before she opens her eyes and _ sees _. She’s in a car. She’s in her old clothes. The parking lot is familiar; in the rearview mirror she sees Prince of Prussia mall. Familiar, true, and impossible.

Slowly, Casey looks in the side-view mirror. Realization hits her in a fraction of a second. In the next, she’s leaping out of the car, slamming her doors into the neighbouring ones, just in time to see Claire’s father on the floor and Kevin -- no Dennis -- standing above him.

She isn’t subtle. She can’t be, knowing what’s happening and still not believing it. She isn’t difficult to miss either. Dennis lifts his eyes from the mess in takeout boxes and stares right into the center of her.

The last time she saw him was in front of the Hospital where Kevin was shot and that was five, maybe six, loops before Kevin had told her to give up. She rushes to him, knowing one thing -- if she’s gone back to when he kidnapped them, if she’s started another loop -- she has to stop what had doomed Kevin from the beginning. She has to stop Dennis from taking them.

Casey gets close, she supposes, only because Dennis is startled she’s going towards him instead of running away. But he’s familiar, in a way Kevin had grown to be familiar, and she forgets herself: Casey grabs him by the arms. He’s so much bigger than her, and yet, she still feels as if she’s trying to shake him awake.

“Dennis,” she starts, feeling her heartbeat skyrocket. “You have to stop, okay? Don’t do this.”

His eyebrows rise, the frown, perhaps for the first time, slacking in surprise.

“You know me?” he asks.

That’s her mistake. Casey hasn’t got a response on the ready, she has her _ hands _ on him, he’s just knocked out a man and his mission isn’t over yet. Dennis exists to protect.

She watches Dennis’ eyes growing cold, frown deepening just moments before he pushes her away only enough to point the pray bottle in her face.

#### -

Casey wakes up to a raging headache. The silence is palpable. She can only hear the buzz of the lightbulb above her, the ones in the bathroom, and finally the creaking of her cot when she forces her limbs to cooperate and get her sitting up.

Claire and Marcia are alive. She blinks, swallows, processes the sight. They’re still knocked out -- this time Casey was the first not the last -- and they’re breathing. Months have passed since she come forward about the abuse and been put in a foster home; along the way, it seems, she’s forgotten to think about them at all.

She needed time to get used to living somewhere else, with children and two people who actually care, time to forgive herself for all the things that were never her fault to begin with but thought were, and, furthermore, forgive herself for not doing that sooner. She had time to adjust, to become brave, to turn eighteen and learn how to drive. And now, she realises, she’s back in her old body, back with the scars and the shame.

Casey takes a breath and swallows all of that down. Maybe it’s good that Dennis knocked her out. She knows she panicked back there in the parking lot, but, in her defence, she had just watched her friend die and tell her to let him stay dead.

As calm as she’s going to get, rather than focusing on the two girls on the cot next to hers, she examines what she knows about her situation. The loop has rules. Those of the first loop she’d managed to suss out, but she doesn’t know the rules of this one. Dennis, obviously, doesn’t remember her. She should have expected that. After all she’s gone back in time before they’d been caught by the Clover, before she’d tried to break them out, before all the times the loop had broken and re-started because she stayed talking with him for too long.

Casey takes another calming breath. She couldn’t save Kevin in the first loop but this one may offer a different result. Maybe if she stops him from killing all those people, maybe if she stops the Beast from coming forward, maybe then. Maybe. That’s too many maybes. She needs to know.

From the corner of her eye she watches Claire stir awake. Marcia soon follows. They’re disoriented, obviously, and it takes them a moment to look around. When they don’t recognize where they are and when they remember what happened the fear kicks in; Casey sees their eyes widening, body stiffening at attention.

Casey supposes she should have felt afraid. But have enough bad things happen to you, you grow to love the only thing which is familiar.

“What the hell is going on?” Claire demands, looking at Casey. “What are we doing here? What happened to my dad?”

Casey shrugs. There’s no point in answering any of that. Her head snaps back to the doors when she hears the outer ones open -- Dennis has returned.

“Oh he’s... he’s out there,” Marcia observes.

Casey can hear him now, shuffling around.

Claire, insistent, asks, “Do you know what happened to my dad?”

The doors unlock and swing open. Just like before, just like the first time, Casey watches Dennis set up a chair for himself, brush it down, and sit. He observes them.

Casey shifts on the bed, both to draw attention from the Marcia and Claire, and to get her feet on the ground. She looks him right in the eye. She hasn’t been afraid of Dennis for a while now. Neither him, nor the Beast.

“Miss Patricia would be very cross if you were to play with the sacred food,” she says.

She can feel Claire and Marcia’s eyes on the side of her face.

“You know this guy, Casey?” Marcia asks, voice wobbly.

Dennis doesn’t react, except to pull his hands tighter to himself where he has crossed them. There’s a moment of tension as she looks at him and he observes her. Then his nostrils flare, his frown deepens, and he stands.

“You,” he points to Casey, “come.”

He takes the chair, folds it back up, and waits by the doors for her. She expects to be grabbed, pushed, shoved and threatened. But Dennis does nothing. He points to the computer chair and commands her to sit, a command which she obeys while he locks the doors.

Casey hasn’t seen this room since she busted down the doors to get out of it. She notices Hedwig’s drawings put up between the radios and stereos, the stickers, in different colors, labeling who’s is what and what’s not to touch, notes the workout kit in the corner: boxing bag, the stationary bicycle, weights, the library of books in the far corner, and Dennis in front of her, arms crossed, frowning.

As if saying _ ‘alright’ _ he nods, unfolds the chair and sits in front of her. He leans forward and asks, “Who do you know? Barry? Did he tell you about us? Or was it Jade?”

“You need to stop this Dennis,” Casey replies, ignoring the question.

How can she answer it anyway? How can she tell him: I have lived through the same three days enough times to know Jade’s prefers hot yoga, hates mustard color but likes mustard itself, that Barry has grown sick of the particular shade of yellow of their hospital clothes, that he thinks Givenchy is full of shit and Alexander McQueen too propped up. She can’t tell him she knows he regrets listening to Patricia, that he regrets so many people dying after the fact, that all he had wanted was for them, all of the system, to be safe.

The time is so strange in the loop, she feels as if she has aged even though she keeps reliving the same thing over and over again, and now she feels ancient, and sick with sadness.

“Who do you know?” he insists, louder.

“I know you believe that the Beast will protect you. But he isn’t the answer. If you drag him out he’ll kill a lot of people, and then you’ll--”

He very nearly growls and grabs the chair, bringing Casey closer to him. He stands up, towering over her, and gets in her face in a way that might have been menacing once. He says, “Who are you?”

“_ If _ you bring the Beast forward, you won’t be able to hide so many people dying. Others will find you and not those like us. Those people who want to stop anyone like us from existing in the first place.”

“No!” he shouts, “No, shut up! You tell me who of us talked!”

“Dennis,” she reaches for his hand on the chair, but just as she touches him he pulls away so violently, Casey herself leans back. Except, she leans back too far. She hears the wheels cracking just before she loses balance and falls. The back of her head connects with the sharp edge of the table and everything goes black.

#### -

Casey opens her eyes. She’s in the car. She leaps out of it, just to see Claire’s dad toppling to the floor. Dennis is there, again, and this time she isn’t gentle.

“Kevin Wendell Crumb,” she shouts.

Dennis contorts as if she’s slapped him. Casey repeats Kevin’s full name until she’s standing in front of him, his face in her hands, and his beautiful, confused, blue eyes are looking at her full of concern and fear.

“I am-- who are you?”

It’s heartbreaking. So much history lost, even though it should have never happened to begin with. Casey swallows her heartbreak and says, “I’m a friend. I’m your friend.”

“You are?” he asks, puzzled and earnest.

“Yeah,” she nods.

Maybe this is the way -- stopping him before he has even begun. She can explain everything to Kevin. They will have to make a plan, but at least the police isn’t looking for them, Clover doesn’t know about them, and the Overseer is still blind.

“I-- oh god. What did I do?” he asks, eyes going from her to the man on the floor.

“It’s okay, it’s nothing, come on, let’s get you something to drink, alright?”

She leads him, slowly, softly, to the entrance on the mall. They go in and she can feel him squeezing her hand. Too many noises maybe, too many harsh lights, too many people. They go back to the second floor cafe, take their drinks, and find a seat.

She thought about this so many times in the previous loop -- having coffee with Kevin when they were free of the loop. It feels like a big joke on her account.

“How-how do I know you?”

“It’s a very long story,” Casey replies just as tentatively as Kevin asked. “You haven’t been out for a long time, Kevin. I know about the others too. Would you believe me if I told you I was from the future?”

He looks at her, nervous, but when she says that he chuckles, softly, just-there-and-miss-it.

“You know me from the future?” He sounds sceptical now. It’s good, everything except fear is good. Then his face turns hurt. He asks, “Is this a joke to you? Are you making fun of me?”

“No.” She touches his hand across the table. “You and I are the same, Kevin.”

“Same?”

“You-- the Beast--”

“Oh,” he says, then shakes his head. “Oh no, I can’t-- I can’t be here--”

Casey watches as Kevin retreats back into his mind, the shell left empty for someone else to use as home.

“You’re making Kevin very upset,” he says with a lisp. Hedwig.

Casey’s panic, disappointment, and regret turn into nausea. She feels it, intrinsically, and she knows what’s coming. Her heart has been beating too quickly for some time. She thought it was because she was speaking to Kevin. Now, it’s grown twisted.

“Hedwig,” she says, holding his wrist. It hurts. She can’t form any more words.

The loop has rules. It has always had rules. She has trodden over one of them. If it’s her guess, they’ve stayed here too long; Mr. Benoit must have woken up, Claire and Marcia called the police.

“What-- what’s wrong with you?” Hedwig asks, trying to wrench his hand away. “You’re acting really weird--”

Casey feels something squeeze in her chest. Then her vision blacks out.

#### -

Heart attacks. Casey hates them. They’re the most painful way to go, nevermind being electrocuted, shot, stabbed -- and she’s looped through all of those. Death, in the loop, doesn’t have the same consequences as outside it, and the weight of it has shifted. Now, it’s more of an annoyance.

Casey opens her eyes and she’s in the car. If she goes out, Dennis will take her anyway. If she calls for Kevin, the loop will just put her back at the start. So, faced with the dilemma, she instead waits for Dennis to knock out Mr. Benoit and sit in the driver’s seat.

It happens just like the first time. Claire notices him picking at the trash scraps on the dashboard before he puts on his mask and sprays her and Marcia. He doesn’t notice Cassey. She doesn’t try to get away.

The car starts up and they get on the highway. The zoo is not particularly far from the mall, maybe a thirty minute drive depending on traffic and the only cars on the road are those going in the opposite direction.

Casey isn’t sure what to do so she does nothing. By the time they get on the 76, Dennis has relaxed marginally. She watches him out of the corner of her eye. Part way to the zoo, the dangling scent pine tree around the rearview mirror falls down. It lands, unfortunately, right next to Casey’s leg.

Dennis huffs, takes out his handkerchief, and reaches for it. Then, slowly, he looks up. Their eyes meet.

He leaps away, swerving the car. He’s partway through saying “Jesus fucking Chri--” when they colide with another car.

Casey’s made a mistake. She forgot to fasten her seatbelt. She dies, probably, around the time her head collides with the glass.

#### -

Casey opens her eyes. She groans. She hasn’t had to re-start so many incomplete loops before and she feels ill with it. Her head is pounding. She scrunches her eyes up, folding on herself in the front seat.

She feels the other car doors open, can hear a sharp inhale, the fizz of Dennis spraying Claire and Marcia, and the creak of the seat as he sits down.

She hears, “You’re still here.” It’s not said in surprise, just annoyance.

She sits back and looks at him. Defiance, at least, Dennis can recognize. He remembers her, she realizes. She didn’t think he would -- first time around it took Kevin a few loops before he realised time was repeating itself.

Dennis shakes his head. “At least buckle your seatbelt.”

#### -

When he parks, it’s at the back maintenance entrance of the zoo and Casey realizes why nobody had seen him taking them in. He puts his hands on the steering wheel and says, “Alright. Do I need to spray you or you’ll come on your own?”

“I’ll come with,” Casey replies.

He gets out of the car. Casey watches him from the front seat for a minute as he walks to the doors before she follows after him. It didn’t feel like this, first time around. Maybe it’s because, when she went to visit Kevin in the hospital, they had already known her. Still, there’s something emboldening in knowing there are no consequences to one’s actions, that she can make a mistake now and know to fix it in the next loop, until she passes the obstacle.

She isn’t sure how she feels about being an accomplice to crime but she still holds the heavy outer doors open as Dennis carries in Claire. He’s gone for a bit, and when he comes back for Marcia he just says, “Follow after me.”

Casey’s forgotten what a tight fit the exit is. The stairs are steep and slippery. The doors close by themselves behind her, and for a moment she’s blind until her eyes get used to the low light. Dennis waits for her under the first naked lightbulb just outside the cage that had separated her from the Beast, the same cage that he’d bent, where she’d shot him, where he’d realized she was the same as him and she realised she had strength to survive.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Dennis says when she gaze lingers on the cage a moment too long.

She looks at him and he turns, walking down the long corridor, pushing a trolley on which he’d put Claire and Marcia. Even without the Beast, there’s no denying Dennis’ strength. He’s only slightly taller than her but she feels as if she could hide in his shadow. His shoulders are wide, and he didn’t look particularly bothered about carrying a hundred pounds of dead weight just a moment ago. She supposes there were other standards for the Beast to come out.

Dennis stops. He turns towards her and says, “In front of me.”

Casey slips to the front, passes the rows of metal lockers where the bullets hide, now mocking her with their presence, and goes further down the hallway until she hits the doors. They aren’t locked, so she opens them and waits for Dennis to carry in Claire and Marcia before closing them.

She’s been in this room before. It looks, unlike the other one, comfortable. There’s couch, comics, a dining table, orange light. It’s a living room. The shotgun is in one of the shelves. Casey doubts she will need it.

Dennis says, “Sit. Don’t move.”

So Casey sits down on the couch and waits for Dennis to deposit Marcia and Claire in the other room. When he’s done he comes back through the kitchen. She can hear him sigh there, step stuttering. She hears the faucet running. He comes back into the living room with a glass of water and thrusts it into her hands.

“I,” he says, pulling out the chair from the table and sitting down in front of her, “remember you. Why do I remember you?”

It took Dennis a few times to get the hang of it before as well. Hedwig too. Hedwig understood the fastest.

“It’s a loop,” Casey replies.

Dennis’ frown is evident. He’s silent, and his silence begs more words from her mouth.

“This already happened before. I didn’t lie to Kevin -- I do know him from the future.” She looks down at Dennis’ folded hands, material protesting the torturous game of stretch-or-rip. “You, Miss Patricia and Hedwig managed to bring out the Beast. You kidnapped and killed a lot of people. Then they caught you.”

Dennis takes a breath. “They killed us?”

“No. They wanted to make you think you’re just human. So Barry, Kevin and Orwell could take over. They almost succeeded.”

Casey takes a sip of water now. ”But, eventually, you manage to break out. And, eventually, you’re shot. You bleed out. Every. Time.”

“The Beast has a thick hide. Bullets can’t hurt him.”

Casey presses her lips into a thin line. “But you can’t always be the Beast. And Kevin didn’t want to be either.”

Dennis uncrosses his hands and rubs his forehead. “You’ve seen him? The Beast?”

“Yes.”

Dennis appears unsettled by this. He looks as happy as he looks nervous. His leg starts trembling, and he passes his hand over his head for a few minutes as he mumbles something. He looks up at her.

“What was he like?”

How could she describe him? She could no more put him in words than she can poot this loop of hers in sentences. “Extraordinary.”

Dennis’ shoulders unwind and he finally pulls himself together. He sits up straight, proper. He says, “So we succeed.” That seems to be the only thing that matters. Casey wishes he could know what regret he would have, in the future, about that success he craves now so badly.

He crosses his hands again, a frown back in place.

“This loop. How do you stop it?”

That’s the question. Casey doesn’t know. She has no idea. She supposes she should have just gone on living instead of being pulled here, in the past.

“When he was dying, Kevin told me to let him go. I...couldn’t. So I ended up here instead.” That’s as far as she knows.

Dennis shakes his head. “Who are you, really?”

“I’m Kevin’s friend. He and I are the same.”

There’s a moment where Dennis stares at her. Maybe he’s talking with someone else, but the moment lingers and stretches. Finally, he says, “You’re not sacred food, are you.”

Casey shakes her head.

Dennis licks his lips, knowing he’s made a mistake. He gets up, sudden and sharp. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t have you stopping this.”

Casey, disappointed, leans back into the couch cushions. She ends up, unexpectedly enough, in a supply closet. She sits down. There’s a very high chance that she isn’t meant to be in the cupboard, which means she just has to wait it out; though Dennis had taken anything that she might hurt herself with and restart the cycle, he doesn’t know about the loop’s proclivity for destabilizing.

#### -

The sound of heels clacking against pavement wakes her just before the doors of the closet open. Casey looks up and sees a woman. She has white hair, rings, her coat, and a terrified expression on her face. Something about her seems familiar -- it takes a moment until Casey realizes she’s the one who’d written Kevin’s full name on the piece of paper. Their, Kevin’s, doctor. The only reason why Casey knows Kevin at all.

Like a shadow, Dennis’ face is stark and terrifying above her shoulder.

The doors are slammed shut, startling her. Casey can hear the doctor pleading with Dennis, and she can also hear the, by-now, familiar hiss of the pray.

In all honesty, Casey expected the loop to break long before this. She thought helping Dennis with the girls would trigger the nausea; instead it’s hours later that she feels her breath shorten, her vision tunneling, the pain in her chest blooming. Something’s happening, she’s sure of it. The Beast killed the doctor before. Maybe he’s killing her again.

Casey’s vision goes black.

#### -

Dennis, when he rips the car doors open, is furious. It takes only a minute for him to drug Claire and Marcia, before he’s ripping his dust mask off and saying, “What happened?”

“I had a heart attack.”

He glares at her. “Heart attack,” he repeats. He looks at her. “You’re what-- seventeen?”

“Eighteen,” she corrects. “That’s what happens when you don’t follow the loop’s rules. It wants some things to happen, or not happen. If they do, it becomes unstable. Sends me to the start.”

“You could have said there are rules to this thing. We were so--so--_ close _.”

He hits the steering wheel with his palm, shouting. Casey wishes he weren’t so upset.

“In my defense you put me in a cupboard.”

Dennis clicks his tongue and turns on the engine. They’re on the highway when he deems to speak again. “Why do you think, why did it restart?”

“Well-- what were you doing?”

She sees the shame and regret on Dennis’ face. A fire recognizes a fire.

“The Beast was-- Dr. Fletcher-- she didn’t understand.”

Casey sighs. “She was there for you, ten years ago, when Kevin was just getting on his feet. Your mother had died. You were free, finally. She was there through it all with you.”

“How do you--” Dennis stops himself and passes a hand his head. “Kevin talked too much.”

Casey doesn’t agree. In her opinion, Kevin didn’t talk _ enough _. There were still things she wanted to ask him. She supposes she will have to wait now, until she can see him again, until she can build up again what they had before. For now, Casey waits for Dennis to sort his thoughts out. He’d always appreciated a silence, before.

Finally, he looks at her. “I should have just left you there.”

“The loop would just re-start. I tried that already.”

He groans. “Fasten your seatbelt. I don’t know why I have to keep reminding you.”

#### -

Dennis sits her in the living room but it’s Miss Patricia who comes back with two cups of tea. She hands her one of them, and sits down next to her.

“It’s time we properly met, don’t you think?” Miss Patricia asks. “Do you know who I am?”

“Miss Patricia.”

“Of course,” she smiles. “And you are?”

“Casey.”

“Casey,” she repeats. “The girls had asked about you, before. Good friends of yours?”

“Not really.”

She hums. This has always been the way with Patricia. She’s dangerous, in only a way a tigress can be. She revels in causing discomfort to others, but she herself follows rules. She’s the faith in this equation. Kevin talked about her. He had said she was an answer when he couldn’t equate what he was going through with his faith. Once, he said, he’d been deeply religious.

“Dennis spoke with me. You’ve made him quite upset you know. Now, you can tell me what this is all _ really _ about.”

But, Miss Patricia is also the one who had started all of this. She is also the reasonable one who listens, before making a decision.

“All of this already happened. You went to the train station,” Casey recalls Dennis telling her that’s where he went to bring the Beast, “you came back. Killed Dr. Fletcher, the girls. Then, he tried to kill me.”

“And he succeeded?”

Casey huffs softly, a smile on her face. “He gave me strength to combat my own demons.” She hesitates, before putting down the tea. She’s forgotten how many shirts she used to wear. Before, she’d been ashamed of her scars. Now, she rolls the fabric up to show them to Patricia.

The woman looks at them, something on her face changing, before looking back at her. “You’re really like us.”

“You kept kidnapping girls,” she continues, replacing her shirts. “Until one day you were caught. You were brought to a Hospital. Dr. Staple was supposed to cure you of your ideations of being a superhero, or a supervillain, in three days. That’s when my first loop started.”

“You said we escape.”

“You would, with another patient, Mr. Glass. But Dr. Staple was part of an organisation, Clover. They, I learned after the fact, have been killing people like you to keep reality _ reality _. You aren’t alone. You were never alone.”

“Then, the Beast, did he inspire anyone else to come forward?” Miss Patricia sounds excited. She sounds like what she is -- a cult leader.

“No,” Casey replies. “There are others out there, but they’re hiding. And for a good reason-- they’re afraid. And they’re smart to be afraid when something like Clover exists.”

Miss Patricia’s smile wanes, and she grows serious. “The Beast is inevitable, dear. No matter what happens.”

Casey doesn’t argue even though she doesn’t agree. “There was another man there, called the Overseer. He was in a train crash, and he was the only one to survive. He has supernatural strength too. Later he found out the train crash was orchestrated by Mr. Glass.” She looks at Patricia. “It’s the same train Kevin’s father was on.”

Patricia’s smile turns brittle. She sips her tea but Casey knows her actions are mechanical at most.

“Don’t lie,” she says after a moment.

“Why would I? You can find this information for yourself. You could have had it, years ago.”

Miss Patricia lifts her hand to stop her talking, and Casey goes silent.

“Whatever you say, whatever you think you’re doing for Kevin, or us, from some misplaced sense of duty I suppose -- it doesn’t matter. The Beast will emerge. He’s part of us. He’s _ always _ been a part of us.”

Casey bites down her immediate reply. Above all, she’s frustrated, and hurting, and she wants to help, and it seems she’s making all of this worse.

“I don’t know how many times I’ve done the first loop. But I know that I’m here because I don’t want to see you, see Kevin, dying again. That’s all.”

Miss Patricia looks at her, and something breaks. For a moment, a crazy, unhinged moment, Casey thinks she might recognize her, that she knows her, that she remembers. The next, however, she simply says, “Drink you tea dear. It’ll grow cold.”

#### -

Doors slamming shut wakes her. She thinks, for a moment, that she’s in the car but the orange glow of the room sets it apart, telling her she’s still in the loop, she’s still in the living room, still at the zoo. She remains laying until she hears the skid of heels. They stop at the kitchen, and though she can’t see his face, the hint of the too-large trainers and blue tracksuit peaking just from the opened doors are a give-away.

“Hedwig?” she asks, lifting herself up. “You can come here.”

After a minute of muttering, Hedwig emerges, slowly, moving close to the wall. He looks shy. She’s never really seen him like this.

“I’m...not supposed to be here you know,” he says.

“You’re alright,” Casey says, smiling in soft relief. “Come sit with me.”

Hedwig shakes his head. “No- no I’m not supposed to-- Miss Patricia and Mr. Dennis aren’t really sure about you. They’re not scared, but I know Miss Patricia doesn’t really like you much, and you made Mr. Dennis sad.”

Casey sighs and leans back into the couch. “Would you like to know what I told them? It’s about the Beast.”

“They don’t tell me much,” he replies, and slowly inches closer.

“I know,” Casey says in a conspiratorial tone that seems to awaken something curiosity in the boy.

Finally, he sits next to her. “Miss Patricia says that you’re from the future. Is that true?”

“Sort of,” Casey replies.

“So like...are there flying cars?”

Casey laughs. Before, she would have been afraid to. Now, she has memories of Hedwig with him being quite silly even in a grave situation.

“Not that far into the future. It’s been...four, five months at most.”

“Oh,” he says, looking disappointed. “Well why’d you come back?”

“Do you want me to be honest with you Hedwig?”

He nods.

“In the future, you all become the Beast.”

He gasps, half smiling, suddenly excited. “Oh I knew it, I knew we could do it! So it’s real?”

She nods.”It’s real. But even with the Beast, there are some bad people out there. I can’t save you from them. So I came back here to try.”

“Do they...hurt us?” Hedwig asks, tentative.

Casey nods. “Yeah.”

“But. But the Beast can’t be hurt. You’re a liar,” he decides.

It amuses Casey more than anything else.

“Alright then, how about a test, to see if I’m lying? I’ll tell you three things I know, and one thing that will happen, ok?”

Hedwig nods, sharply. He crosses his legs on top of the couch and turns towards her. She mimics his pose.

“The others made fun of you. Miss Patricia thinks you’re not very smart because you make mistakes. She sometimes sings to you though.” She nods to see if she should continue and he nods back.

“You managed to steal the light from Barry. Now you decide who sits in the chair. That’s why Miss Patricia and Dennis let you be with them.”

He nods again.

“In your room there’s a CD player under a window. You drew the window. You also stole Mr. Dennis’ walkie-talkie because you like to listen to people talking.”

“Alright, that’s creepy. How do you know these things?”

“I’ve already lived through this, Hedwig.”

“You’re not going to tell on me to Mr. Dennis are you? He’ll be _ really _mad with me.”

Of course, Casey thinks, that’s Hedwig’s main concern. She sighs. “No. It’s our secret.”

He nods in something akin to approval. Then he asks, “What’s the other one? From the future?”

“Hm, well, in the future, Nicki and Drake are going to break up. But you can’t like both so Drake is going to be your main man.”

“Now you’re just making stuff up,” he says. “Nicki and Drake won’t break up, et cetera. They’re one of _ those _ couples.”

“But were the first three correct?”

He ponders. Then he admits, “Yeah they were. And that’s creepy. You’re creepy. Now I can’t show you anything cool!”

“You can show me something else that’s cool. Your drawings maybe?”

“You’d actually like to see them?” He frowns. “Hey did you really know me in the future?”

“I did, Hedwig. You were very brave.”

And very scared, Casey thinks. He’d clutched her shirt, begging her to make the pain stop and she couldn’t help him no matter how much she wanted to.   
  
Whatever shows on her face, Hedwig doesn’t want to do anything with it. He pokes her in the arm and says, “Stop doing that with your face. You can come to my room.”

The sight is similar and in a hand heartbreaking, she knows now that the window is Hedwig coping with the unfit conditions for a child, even though it seems Dennis and Patricia have tried to give him whatever he wanted.

“It’s not fair tho, you know things about me and I don’t know anything about you!”

She sits down at the foot of the bed next to him, with the drawings. “Well,” she starts, as she slowly looks through them, “My name is Casey. I’m eighteen.”

“Oh, oh guess how old am I?”

“Nine.”

“That’s right!” He pulls a a face. “You really are from the future, aren’t you? What else?”

She smiles. “I...used to go hunting for deer with my dad.”

“What’s your favorite color? Mine’s blue.”

“Well...mine’s I suppose...orange.”

He pulls a face. “You really are weird. Who likes _ orange? _”

Somehow, she ends up talking with Hedwig until she’s grown tired again. It’s easy to lie down, and it’s simple talking to him. It’s familiar. She’s missed it. Hedwig has all that childish innocence, wonder, joy, intent to have fun and take it, she’d forgotten she’d had -- forgotten was something kids had at all. And all he wants is attention, like all children really do. In that instance, she misses Kevin so much it hurts.

#### -

She falls asleep, and when she wakes, it’s not Hedwig’s hand on her shoulder. Dennis releases her the moment her eyes open.

“I have things to do. Appointments. Are you going to behave or are you going in the same room as the other two?”

Casey sees no point in seeing Marcia or Claire, it’s only going to upset her, so she says, “I’ll be good.”

Dennis’ expression shifts into something else, something Casey doesn’t recognize. She can see the muscle in his jaw jumping even as he holds himself perfectly still, looking at her; perhaps he wishes -- like she’d wished so many times before -- to know the thoughts of the other.

“I’ll be back. Don’t do anything stupid.” He turns to leave, adding, “There’s food in the kitchen. I put out a glass for you.”

Then he slips out of the room, without as much as looking back.

Casey takes time getting up. She doesn’t remember the last time she’d had a long sleep -- her loop had always started sharp in the morning before school. It’s a bizarre time in which to find comfort but it’s as good a time as any when trapped. After all, this loop won’t be the last.

She gets up and goes to the bathroom. There’s a, thoughtfully enough, a guest toothbrush put out for her so she uses it before heading for the kitchen. Patricia’s made her one of her terrible sandwitches it seems. Casey pilfers the fridge and sits down to eat. She’s forgotten the last time she did it and once she starts, it’s difficult to stop until she’s full.

Bizzare. She doesn’t know how to break the loop either. There are no bright green lights signaling the exit, no fire alarm, no return to the present as she knew it. They’d been open to her because Kevin was open to her; this loop she is going to have to work herself in not from inside out but outside in, which means going through the wall -- Dennis. A sisyphean task.

Overcome by the realisation, Casey finishes her meal, washes her dishes, wipes down the counter -- at her home she too had to be invisible to remain unnoticed -- and is about to return to the living room when she notices the bundle of blankets in the corner of the stovetop. They’re stacked and clean and look disused. Strange place, she thinks, to place anything flammable.

The fabric is coarse under her fingertips when she lifts them for inspection. They’re heavy as well. It’s a small mystery she can focus on, the whys of not putting them away in the linen closet especially considering Dennis’ condition, rather than focusing on the bigger picture and she knows she is doing it, and yet she still takes time to unfold one, consider it, and re-fold it before moving them back. Good thing too, because something slips out from between the other two and lands, noisily, on the stove.

Surprised, she puts the blankets back and steps away, only to see keys, and a very, _ very _ old cellphone. She takes it before she can think otherwise. It’s a flip-phone, and however long it’s been there seems to have drained its battery. She flips it closed and replaces it. The keys, she takes. There’s an orange tag on the bundle, one tagged as _ Kevin _.

Her heart flips, and she swallows.

The living room and the kitchen spill into the hallway which connects the entrance, a row of supply closets, restroom, and Hedwig’s room with stairs that lead down into the ante-chamber with the computer, and the main chamber where she used to be kept. Casey takes the keys and heads in that direction.

The doors are locked, someone as fastidious as Dennis wouldn’t leave them otherwise, but eventually-- now that her hands aren’t shaking -- she finds the right key. She goes inside and powers on the computer. Casey, despite the many loops, has managed only to talk to six of them. The list of videos, all titled according to the old hierarchy of personalities is still astounding, especially considering that talking with Kevin has revealed how much she truly doesn’t know about him.

She clicks on Kevin’s video journal labeled September 17th, 2014. The day before he lost two years of his life.

She watches him talking to the camera and he seems, to her, much different than who she’s grown to know. He looks frightened. Of himself perhaps, or because of his memories, she isn’t sure. She curls up on the chair and rests her face on her knees. She loves him, she thinks, in a way you love your reflection, and she hasn’t liked hers in a very long time. It’s difficult to describe the bond.

She lets the video play on the loop and drifts. The sound of stomping feet startle her but she doesn’t move even with the doors swinging open. She hears a hiss, a curse, a sigh.

“You’re still here.” Dennis sounds surprised. He walks over to her so she can sense his presence on her back. “What are you-- that’s _ private _.”

He spins her around. This time, he holds onto the chair.

“I’ve already seen it, anyway.” The lie doesn’t feel like one at all.

Dennis appears as if he wants to say something but he’s ultimately lost for words. Finally he sighs, straightens himself and points his hand at the door, “Let’s move to the-- to the kitchen, or living room, please.”

Casey stands and only then does she note Dennis’ clothing. It’s too baggy, too street, too few neat lines. She frowns. “Are you pretending to be Barry?”

He holds the doors open. “Come through, please.”  


Casey goes and the doors close behind her. She realises Dennis must have wanted to change. He finds her in the living room soon enough anyway, in his usual button up monochrome shirt and pants, that do nothing to hide the musculature like Barry’s, and everything to scream _ well-adjusted _. She thinks of wolf and sheep.

Unlike before, Dennis sits down next to her. He clears his throat, obviously uncomfortable, elbows on his knees, palms rubbing together.

“How many times have you done this?”

“The loop? I don’t know.”  


He sighs through his nose. “You said-- you said that we die even with the Beast. And Miss Patricia-- hmm. She said that Kevin’s father’s death isn’t an accident. She says it isn’t true but I looked it up. It’s there, black on white.”

She waits for more but he falls silent.

“Dennis,” she says then, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I know why you’re here. How you got here. How you protect Kevin. I’ve seen how...amazing and extraordinary the Beast is. I also know that the protection he promises isn’t there. Not ultimately.”  


Dennis, stiff, says, “You know?”

“I know you manifested to protect Kevin from the abuse his mother put him through. I know that you want to believe that the Beast will solve all of your problems.”

He looks up at her, face gone slack, vulnerable, open, as Casey’s seen only once before. Dennis is the shield. He doesn’t let anything through and nothing out. And yet.

“What happened?” he nearly whispers.

“The Beast let me live, and walked away. In the morning one of the workers found me. They found your things, the bodies. The police began to chase you.”

“And the Beast?” he asked, now sounding nearly desperate. “What happened with him?”

“I don’t know.”

“How--” he takes her by the biceps. “How do you not know? You said we went on killing. Well, why?”

She shakes her head. “Miss Patricia talked about ten to twelve more sacrifices, and later when we talked she said it was simply necessary. But I can’t tell you what for. I can’t tell you if it’s for anything at all.”

Dennis looks at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, one hand after another, he lets go of her and turns away, face in hands. “You say you’re Kevin’s friend. But he’s very weak, Casey. I can’t fix that. I can’t fix the world ignoring that we exist.”  


She slides closer to him to wrap her arm around his shoulders. “Do you think he would be happy with you killing people? What Kevin needs is _ help _ and people around him who understand.”

“Nobody _ understands _,” he shouts, turning his head to look at her. “They don’t think we’re real. Nobody except Dr. Fletcher and she--”

“She did try to help. And I’m trying to help. There are others, out there, like you and I, we just need to find them. Before the Clover can kill them. You _ aren’t _alone.”

He turns his gaze to the floor and looks at his hands. “I don’t know anymore,” he says, defeated. “Maybe we _ are _all crazy.”

#### -

_ His hand was in her hair _ . _ They were lying in the grass in front of the hospital, waiting for the loop to end, his head in her lap. It never wanted to give them these moments. _

_ “I wish,” Kevin had said, “that we’d met earlier.” _

_ “We did,” Casey replied. _

_ He gave her a smile. “I mean I wish you’d called my name earlier, before I could do...what I did.” _

_ She bowed over him and pressed her lips to his forehead. She felt her heart thudding in twin pains. Casey didn’t need to say anything. He took her hand and held as her vision went blank. _

#### -

Dennis sets her up in Hedwig’s room. It’s the kid who goes to sleep and wakes up before he hands over the light to others and Hedwig doesn’t seem to mind sharing. She’s there on her cot, propped up with a book on borrow when she hears voices.

For a moment, she thinks Patricia and Dennis are talking, but the voice -- the closer she listens -- is distinctly older and feminine. She goes to investigate and finds the doors to the hallway are open.

She hears, “I know you have something to tell me so just...say it.”

It’s the doctor. She’s standing with Dennis in front of the table and they both turn to look at her when they notice her hovering by the doors. Dennis’ expression hardens. Strange, Casey thinks, that he let Dr. Fletcher inside despite what happened last time.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says. He has his jacket on, his shoes ready. There’s the smell of night air on both of them.

When she looks him in the eye Dennis knows she’s caught him.

“You’re leaving?” she asks, and doesn’t mean to make it so soft, so hurt. More than anything, she wishes she wasn’t just in her socks on the cold floor and is aware of the coldness seeping into her.

Casey thought she’d gotten to Dennis. She thought she’s convinced him to give it up.

“I have to,” he says. He doesn’t apologise. There, he stays honest. “He’s a part of me too. I can’t deny him.”

Casey nods, biting her lip.

“I’m sorry,” says Dr. Fletcher, breaking their gazes that have locked onto each other, and barrelling straight through the cloying atmosphere Dennis’ admission has brought. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“I’m Casey,” she says. “Kevin’s friend.”

“I’m Dr. Karen Fletcher. I didn’t think Kevin has been out in-- oh say two years now.”

“I really need to leave for an appointment,” Dennis interrupts.

“It’s okay,” Casey says, stepping forward. “Go. I can walk Dr. Fletcher out.”

Dennis seems to consider this. His eyes narrow and before Casey can do anything but step forward he has put his handkerchief over his nose and sprayed Dr. Fletcher in the face. She stumbles, and he catches her but she’s lost to the world. He gently deposits her on the couch and turns to her.

“Don’t be here when I return,” he says. He leaves her there with the sleeping woman.

#### -

Casey cleans the spray from her face, if because of anything else but the idea that she might wake up sooner if she doesn’t have to smell it too long. Dr. Fletcher wakes up eventually, though she is still dizzy and confused. She looks at Casey and grabs her hand.

“Slowly,” Casey instructs, helping her sit up. “It’s alright.”

“You’re...I recognize you from the news. You’re one of the girls. Why are you helping him?” Dr. Fletcher asks after Casey assisting her through a glass of water.

“The Beast is real. I have been trying to convince Dennis to give him up to little success. Patricia’s running the show.”

“Alright,” she says, “what you’re experiencing right now is Stockholm’s Syndrome.”

Casey actually laughs. She helps Dr. Fletcher to her feet. She should take her outside, call her a cab. She’s been fine with the days rolling one after another instead of restarting the loop constantly.

“I’ve not suddenly fallen in love with Kevin or Dennis nor, for that matter, Patricia because I was brought here. I haven’t been kept prisoner, Dr. Fletcher. I came of my own free will.”

Dr. Fletcher stumbles as they walk into the hallway, but Casey is there to hold her up.

“Where, where are we going?”

“I can’t have you die and the Beast will be here soon.”

“How can you just believe in this fairytale too?” the woman demands, sounding more and more scared.

Casey looks at her. “Because I’ve seen him. Because I know he’s real.”

“Dennis?” Dr. Fletcher settles on, pursuing her own narrative, and not listening to her. “Did he do something to you?”

“No, Dr. Fletcher. Come on now we should leave.”

She stops at the stairs. “Wait, your friends. Where are they?”

“We can’t help them now. Go.”

“No Casey, please. We have to help them.”

The woman braves herself and goes down the hall. Both Marcia and Claire are kept in the supply closets and they startle when they see Dr. Fletcher and her.

“Casey?” Claire asks when she spots her behind the doctor, confused and shocked.

“My name is Dr. Fletcher,” the woman says, “We’re helping you escape, come on now.”

Casey feels nausea seeping inside her, discomfort as real as the hand around hers pulling her to the exit. This time, it’s worse than a heart attack, it feels like she’s swallowed a cushion-pin on needles and she feels all of them right in her throat.

It’s the loop. She knows it. She can _ feel _it.

The noise of doors opening is startlingly loud in her ears. Dr. Fletcher’s hand on her wavers and then there are shocked gasps, a cut off scream. Casey looks up and sees The Beast standing right there, in front of their exit.

She hasn’t seen him in a long time. Last time she did, he’d make her promise to find a way to help them. A horrible sight -- watching him beg.

Casey feels nausea rising from her belly, up her throat, and pooling in her mouth. It tastes like copper. She knows somebody runs. But both Marcia and Claire are behind her, and Dr. Fletcher tugs her hand, but Casey can’t -- she remains stoic in face of the coming danger.

The Beast looks at her. He must sense something is wrong too, otherwise what cat and what wolf resist chasing running prey?   


He walks towards her until they’re hip to hip and he’s sniffing at her hair. “Hurt?” he asks, rough hands gentle on her scalp, shoulder, hip, before they slide under her shirts to feel her scars. She looks at him, shocked, but lets him.

Tentatively, she wraps a hand around his neck so she can lean on him. There’s a wound somewhere on her, one the Beast’s searching hands won’t find. Blood pours from her mouth unbidden. It’s a startling crescent color, ruining her clothes, and binding them together in sticky, sickly, hold.


	2. Anabasis

Despite the thirty minute drive, the ten minute walk-down to the living area, and ten minute rest while Dennis, furious and stubborn, carries in Claire and Marcia, Casey’s hands refuse to stop shaking.

She is strong. She is a survivor. These are undeniable facts of her existence, the intrinsic truths she refuses to give up or deny. She is also petrified. Not because of anything else but because she has been stuck in a situation she doesn’t know how to fix with growing consequences. It hurts. It hurt to die this time. It felt worse than all the times before. For the first time she felt truly afraid; she felt as if she might not wake up again.

Dennis isn’t intentionally loud but his footsteps are determined and thus impossible to ignore. The clack of the heels of his dress-shoes changes from cement to tiles, and she hears the noise of the metal doors swinging open. Things _ have _changed. At least now she doesn’t jump at every little sound. She just wishes the change was more relevant to her mission, to her problem, to her continued existence.

She used to be hyper-vigilant and always, always, made sure to come home late. Even Claire’s birthday party was an excuse. She thought it would be easier to walk back home; she would have made an hour just for herself, an hour away from terror.

The amount of clothes on her is suddenly stifling. She’s forgotten to take some of the layers off this time.

“Casey?” Dennis says. She can’t look at him she can’t she’s--

Dennis kneels in front of her, frowning, but still she can just look at her hands. She didn’t even try to help Claire and Marcia. It wasn’t a thought, it wasn’t an idea at all. She’d written them off, just like every other girl the Beast had killed and mauled in the silent months between them, just because she saw herself in Kevin, and saw a girl with a shotgun in the Beast.

She wishes, she’s always wished for so long, she’d pulled that trigger.

Large hands slide into hers, holding them tightly. “Hey,” Dennis says, “Hey, what’s wrong?” Casey can now hear the silent _ What can I fix? _

Dennis is not a compassionate person. When Casey finally looks at him, it sits awkwardly on his face, body taut as if he might leap away at any moment just as soon as Casey releases him. Still like that, he looks strong too. Reliable. Dennis had been made for that as well: to look at the world disillusioned, bear the brunt of the worst Kevin couldn’t take, force the body to function and get them all to another day.

“What happened during the last loop?” he asks.

Casey takes a deep breath, then another. “The Beast came back.”

“Did he-- did we--did you see us?”

“Dr. Fletcher wanted to help the girls. By the time she got them out, he was here. They were running away and I felt the loop closing, going loose I--” she licks her lips, tries to breathe properly. “Why is it girls?”

“What?”

“The sacrifice, the- the sacred food. It’s always girls. The reports on the TV were always the same. Just like Marcia, Claire and I, high school girls. Why?”

She felt Dennis trying to pull away and she held onto his hands, not with strength, which he could conquer in any moment, but with gentleness which seems that he can’t deny himself.

“It’s...uhh Miss Patricia...” he licks his lips, gaze leaving her own and slipping away. Ashamed. Casey knows it when she sees it. “She told me what to look for. And I picked.”

“How did Miss Patricia know what to look for?”

He shakes his head, saying, “I don’t-- I don’t know Casey I was. I was just supposed to grab one. I just did what she told me to do.”

He moves to stand and Casey looks up, finding Dennis suddenly too close, her hands suddenly too cold. She wishes, now more than ever, that Kevin and all the others could remember her.

She grabs his wrist before he can go, without realising what she’s doing until the soft fabric of his shirt is there under her fingers. He stills and turns around very, very slowly.

Casey doesn’t have a plan. But she knows what she’s missed. “Sit with me a little, won’t you?”

She knows he’ll refuse, so she gentles her hold on his wrist, and slides her hand down so she can take his. “Please?”

She can see him swallow, blink a few times, before his shoulders sag. Instead of reclaiming his hand, he simply sits on her right side, now his fingers starting to shake, as if he’s doing something he isn’t supposed to.

She turns to him. Kevin and she used to hold hands like this. It, inevitably, brought him out no matter who had the light. But that was after everything. That was after she’d woken him up after a two year slumber in his own head. The same touch doesn’t work the same way. Wrong key and wrong formula.

Casey rests her forehead on Dennis’ shoulder, legs tucked under her. He’s warm. He’s always been warm. Dennis, for his part, just breathes and doesn’t try saying anything. She supposes there’s really nothing to say; she’s stealing moment long gone now, that she hasn’t had time to mourn the passing of yet.

His scent, at least, is familiar.

#### -

_ “Casey,” she hears, half-asleep. She isn’t sure if it’s memory or deja-vu. Warm fingers are on her cheek. “I’m trying to be good.” _

#### -

“Hmm, Mr. Dennis isn’t feeling very good today,” Hedwig says, hours later, after they’ve drawn and colored and she watched him try and choreograph a dance. They’re on his bed, trying to play tic-tac-toe after an eventful and frustrating bout of hangman. “He says I have to be _ really _ good instead.”

Casey doesn’t laugh but it’s a near thing. “What else does Dennis say?”

Hedwig tries to place an x, but Casey prevents him from completing the line. “Miss Patricia doesn’t like you. Are you his girlfriend?”

“No, why?”

“Because, if you’re not, will be you _ my _ girlfriend?” Hedwig looks up from the game.

Casey beats him and Hedwig groans, demanding a rematch.

Casey had heard that one before. Interesting, how this time she isn’t as afraid as she’d been before. “Sorry, Hedwig. But I like Kevin.”

Hedwig frowns. He huffs and says, “But like, you talked to him _ once _ . You see Mr. Dennis _ all _ the _ time _.”

She hums, placing her first x in the grid. She liked Dennis too, but she supposes she can’t tell a nine-year-old that. The thing Kevin explained, the last time he was himself, was that if he knows something and if he feels something, at least one of the personalities also knows or feels it. Dennis had been a surprise. But then again, she knew him before she knew Kevin. It’s a question of chicken and egg, that she doesn’t care to find an answer for.

“Is it because of your crazy scars? Because, I don’t think Mr. Dennis would mind you know,” Hedwig says. “Oh shit! I got one, I got one!”

“Hedwig,” Casey starts, “Are you trying to be Dennis’ wingman?”

“You know how it goes, Case, bros before hoes, et cetera.”

Casey laughs. “Why doesn’t Miss Patricia like me, Hedwig?”

Dutifully, Hedwig recites, “Because you’re trying to stop us from becoming who we are and because, she says, you’re holding us hostage. That the Beast will avengence us, and punish the impure. Casey, are you even playing anymore?.”

Casey, startled, looks down at the piece of paper and throws the game. Hedwig whoops. He sets up another and starts.

“She’s mad that Mr. Dennis isn’t listening to her as much as he did before. Now _ I _ have to listen to Miss Patricia ‘cause she’s an adult, but. You said the Beast is real and we became _ him _ so that’s crazy talk too.”

“Did you see him? Did you see what he can do?”

“Yeah, it’s crazy,” Hedwig smiles. “And like, super cool.”

She nods. “He’s like...an avenging spirit. But if you do what he wants, what Miss Patricia says, you’ll be in danger.”

“Hmm, that’s okay tho? Mr. Dennis is here too.”

Casey realizes Hedwig doesn’t understand what being in danger means any more than a kid would understand algebra. He always has an adult to hold his hand.

She asks, “Have you ever gotten lost, Hedwig?”

“Kinda. But then someone always knew to tell me where to go.”

“Being in danger,” Casey says, “means getting lost in a crowd, and not having anyone with you. And not knowing where to go. And very bad men chasing you.”

Nervously, Hedwig looks at her, at the paper, then at her again. “Are you trying to scare me? Because, it’s totally not working.”

“No, Hedwig. I’m trying to help you understand. I don’t want you, or any other, hurt.”

“Not even the Beast?”

“Not even him.”

Hedwig grows quiet for a long moment. Then he looks up and says, “Can we play hangman again?”

Casey sighs and flips the page around.

#### -

Mr. Glass had called the Beast a spirit of vengeance. That is how, Kevin told her, he’d bought him and garnered his loyalty; the pure wanted revenge and that was all the Beast had to offer. She wonders, on her cot, listening to Hedwig’s fitful sleep, what kind of vengeance the Beast has to exude upon high school girls. If anyone, Casey would have thought he’d target women like Kevin’s mother. But that creature has long since rotted in some dark earth even Kevin doesn’t know the location of, and shouldn’t, and Dennis would have forgotten simply for the purpose of leaving ghosts behind.

Yet. It’s not women, it’s girls whose death is required for the Beast’s birth. It’s inevitable, she realises. Claire and Marcia really never had a chance to begin with -- whatever happens, she knows now, the Beast has to _ be _. Patricia won’t have it otherwise.

There’s something there, dangling in front of her face. But Casey misses it.

#### -

_ Her hands are cold where they touch Dennis’ face, cupping his gut-wrenched expression. He usually refuses to share. Now, she isn’t sure what she sees: plea for help, pain as he watches her own, or a desperate need to understand. What has always been an issue between them -- he was the one who took her -- now seems irrelevant as he tries to convince her that he can help her. _

_ Trust isn’t easy to come by, and it took a long time for her to feel anywhere in the realm of safe with him, no matter the facts: that he was there to protect, that he was mournful, that he is Kevin. _

_ Dennis avoids words. That’s his issue as well. She supposes walls aren’t made to speak. But she doesn’t fear him. More than anything, his mountain-like shoulders are a barrier between the world and her. _

_ He hasn’t touched her yet. Perhaps he’s been afraid to. Now, as she bleeds, she needs him to. _

_ “I am him too,” Dennis says, reaching for her finally when she’s not strong enough to stand on her own any longer. She leans, tucking herself under his chin. The wall is marked in red with her shape. _

_ Dennis is also merciful -- a strange quality. He tugs the shard of glass sticking from her back, a momento of Mr. Glass himself, and she bleeds rivers. His hands are shaking where they hold her. _

_ He lets her bleed all over him. The message is clear. _

#### -

Sleeping, she’s found, even on the cot, sits better with her than looping. As usual Hedwig isn’t there -- he wakes ridiculously early simply to hand over the light to Dennis who is tasked in starting their day.

Casey doesn’t know what time it is. She rarely pays attention anymore, but the chill in the air tells her it’s still early.

At least one good thing from wearing all those shirts is that now she can shrug off her hoodie and put on her flannel. She goes about what has become her routine: change shirts, bathroom, then head for kitchen. Usually Dennis isn’t there. Now, he sits at the table and turns when he sees her.

A muscle in his jaw jumps and then something extraordinary: his cheeks flush with color until they’re pink. His eyes jump from her face down and return just as quickly. He clears his throat.

Casey, in that moment, remembers her dream and the fact that the next time they’d met Dennis had pressed a soft, tentative kiss to her lips, a brush really nothing more, and refused to come out after.

Casey is suddenly all too aware of how large the collar of her white shirt is, that she hasn’t buttoned up the flannel. She notes, not for the first time, the way Dennis’ shirt strains as he shifts to cross his hands in front of him, the way his pants fit over his thighs. She takes a breath, and realises all over again that she is, has, and probably will continue to be attracted to him.

“There’s, uh coffee, if you’d like,” he says.

Swallowing her memory down, though she feels it simmering just under her skin ready to leap at any moment, she nods and goes to pour herself a cup. She knows she must be flushed as well. She knows, also, that he must have noticed her looking -- Dennis notices everything. Hyperaware. How familiar.

She’s aware of him now. From the way his leg bounces, the sound of him standing up, the few steps separating them covered in a stride, his presence at her back. She feels as if she’s full of charge, just waiting for something -- for her to touch him, to let all this heat she holds melt all over him.

He doesn’t remember her. He doesn’t know what she does, doesn’t feel the way she feels, so she should step away and let all of the potential of the moment fall between the cracks in the tiles and dissipate. But she’s been waiting for this. Wanting this. And the undeniable truth of the matter is that, even without memories, Dennis want her too.

He doesn’t touch her. He waits, and eventually she has to turn around. She’s pinned she realises. She also realises she isn’t afraid. Not in any real, tangible, nauseating definition of the word. She’s _ expectant _ . She knows if she asks him, he _ will _move away.

Dennis puts a hand on the refrigerator, as if he needs something to hold. “Casey,” he says, “I’m trying to be _ good _. Okay?”

The only thing separating them is the mug of coffee. She replaces it on the counter and the barrier is gone. It’s reckless, she knows this. Paradoxically, now that he's not asking for her trust she has most to give. She’s feels safe with him in a way she’s never really felt safe; they’re the same and he understands, and she has had the Beast too many times close to her jugular to not know he would never bite.

He must read something on his face because he freezes. She would think of deer and headlights, would think of the mating chase and statistics, but all lessons have left her mind. Dennis is there, in front of her, waiting, and she wants him. The equation is simple.

She reaches out and places a hand on his cheek. She can feel him take a shuddering breath, his frown growing stronger for a moment before his expression turns pained.

“What are you doing?” he asks, but when she leans in and she presses her lips to his, he doesn’t move away, doesn’t protest, doesn’t shake. He lets her. Then, when she thinks its over, when she’s ready to just as tentatively move away, he kisses back.

Fire bursts in her belly when he wraps a hand around her waist pulling her tighter to him, hips meeting hips, belly to belly. Her hands go to his shoulders, to his back, and she’s gasping as the kiss strays from soft, barrelling headfirst right into sharp and heated. Dennis kisses her like he _ needs _ her, like he _ wants _ her, and he does it so well that she’s dazed when he pulls back.

The pained expression is still there though, when she looks at him again. She wants to ask him, but she knows that if she doesn’t wait for him to speak some sort of magic might break and he’ll remember he’s holding her and leave.

“Just,” he sighs, shakes his head, passes his hand over it. “Just tell me if you want this. Really. I dont want to be--” _ like your uncle _ “--I just. Just tell me.”

“Dennis, it’s okay.” She takes his free hand and guides it, slowly, to her face, her neck, and rests it on her clavicles. “I want this. I want you. Okay?”

His touch is gentle and tentative over her skin, hand trailing up to her shoulder to brush her hair over it.

“Okay,” he replies. Then he’s there again, leaning in to kiss her, his palm on her jaw cradling her cheek as their lips meet.

There’s a question somewhere in there, perhaps in the tenderness of his touch, the softness of his mouth, the safety of his hand on her hip. Her replies are telegraphed by means of her body: she opens her mouth and deepens the kiss, coils herself against him until they’re touching belly to thigh, her hand slowly feeling the way down his muscled back. She can feel the heat of him, radiating and seeping into her, to her very center, from which it radiates out.

Casey gasps when Dennis steps forward, pushing her back into the kitchen counter. It takes no effort at all on his part to lift her up on it and fit himself between her knees. His hands trace down her back, curl around her flanks yet, hesitate when they get to her skin.

She breaks for breath, and to see the perfect, heated look on his face, full of nothing but want. She leans back, as much as she can, and takes his hand where it’s brushing her naked hip. She lifts her shirt and guides it to her belly. He can touch. She _ wants _ him to touch her.

His fingers are tentative as they pass over her scars. He isn’t looking at her anymore but down at his hand, at her body and at the proof of her survival: she is alive despite her uncle. She’s having someone else touch her, someone she _ wants _ to touch her, in spite of years of terror written on her skin, signed in cuts and burns.

Dennis’ touch turns bold, both hands trailing over her skin, sparking every sense in her when he kisses her again. Then, his grip turns to stone.

“Hold on,” he says, a moment before he lifts her as if she weighs nothing at all, and puts her down on the kitchen table.

Dennis doesn’t even look winded. He grabs Casey by her thighs, drags her to himself, hands warm on her legs. Then, when he’s satisfied in making a mess of her with his kisses, he bows his head to where he’d pushed up her shirt, and traces his mouth over her skin.

Casey shudders. If she wasn’t wet before she’s sure she is now. There’s something about having a man like Dennis be desperate to touch her, have his strength, more or less, in her lap. The strength in his shoulders is ridiculous, his look, when he glances at her, fingers hooking in the waistband of her leggings and underwear, questioning. He’s waiting for her que.

She feels her lungs constricting, knows in a sense, where this is going, so she’s happy to help him get them off. For a moment, Casey wonders if she’s being too hurried, if she’s being too desperate, but then Dennis takes his glasses off, puts them in his pocket, and kneels in front of her, each of her thighs resting on his wide shoulders, and doesn’t hesitate to spread her open and _ lick _.

“Oh,” she gasps.

Dennis leads with his nose, but his tongue is flat against her folds, lapping at her. However hurried he was before, now he takes his time, as if he enjoys this, as if he _ wanted _this. He did, she realises, and stops worrying.

Casey tries to breathe and melts into the sensation of Dennis’ mouth eating her out. One of his hands rests just on her mound, putting pressure, as if he knows that feels good for her, somehow. She groans, and from then on can’t stop the sounds coming from her mouth, unbidden. Dennis’ mouth turns insistent, and he keeps sucking her folds, building pressure and pleasure that accumulates in her belly. She knows blood is rushing to her head, she can almost hear the pounding in her ears. Her cheeks are warm and she can’t really get a good breath in, not when Dennis decides to suck on her clit. Her thighs are shaking, pushing against Dennis’ hand that is the only reason why she hasn’t closed them around his ears yet.

She’s moaning now, outright, and it would be mortified if they weren’t alone. She can’t think straight, not right now anyway. She doesn’t care. All she cares about is that she can feel electricity on her skin, and that Dennis doesn’t stop.

He glances up at her and it’s so hot she knows he must taste more of her wetness on his tongue just then and there. He shifts slowly, the hand on her inner thigh that had been holding her legs open straying to her pussy. His fingers are cold when they touch her, but she gets used to them soon, especially when they start slowly sinking inside her. It’s not an uncomfortable intrusion. She’s wet enough that she doesn’t feel it much.

Dennis takes a moment to breathe, and he looks a downright mess. His face is wet from her, and she feels her cheeks burning bright. “Fuck,” he curses into her hip, fingers slowly moving in and out of her heat. “Look at you,” he says, and he does look at her, all of her. He licks his lips, and curses again.

“I’m going to make you come,” he informs, before he presses his lips against the inner seam of her thigh to bite.

Casey shivers, and it’s a delicious revelation of a sensation. She laughs softly, and her laugh turns into a gasp when his fingers curl and she feels them brushing a spot within her that feels so good her toes curl.

Dennis doesn’t waste time after that. He fucks her on his fingers, licking the rest of her pussy until she’s shaking, white knuckles unable to help her hold herself together where they’re wrapped against the table’s edge. Her vision’s swimming, narrowing, and _ fuck _ it feels too good. She reaches for him then, fingers digging into his shoulder before straying to the side of his face, the back of his head. She can _ feel _ him groaning when she bucks against him.

Dennis’ movements become sharp and quick with the way she’s pushing her hips back into his hand and mouth, and she can feel she’s right there, right at the edge. She moans when she comes, trembling with pleasure and sqeezing around Dennis’ fingers that don’t stop --God they don’t stop-- fucking her right through his orgasm as she throws her head back and screws her eyes shut.

Her vision goes blank.

-/

There’s a singular moment of confusion in which Casey finds herself in the car. Realization dawns only moments before she’s leaping out of the car. Casey’s father is on the ground but Casey runs to Dennis anyway, throwing her hands around his neck and letting him catch her and kiss her silly.

They aren’t supposed to do this. The loop will break again. They don’t have time. Yet, Dennis leaves his hunt, Casey embraces her wishes, and they end up in a motel room right next to the mall, stumbling to the bed.

Her clothes are thrown, halfway gracefully, over a chair, just because she knows Dennis would stop if it were on the floor. His shirt accompanies her own. His undershirt, however, she has the privilege of taking off, feeling the heat of his skin and the firmness of his abdomen as she traces his hands up his body.

She’s seen him naked many times before but it wasn’t like this. Sexual intimacy is different than sheer nakedness. He holds still as she touches him until, at last, she looks up so he can kiss her again and lay her on the bed, his weight a comfort. The bed creaks. It’s shitty, old, cheap. She doesn’t care.

Their shoes are by the door, her tights slowly pushed down her thighs, while she works on Dennis’ belt. She unzips his pants, feels him through his underwear and Dennis curses, thrusting into her loose grip as he kisses down her neck.

A wave of heat washes over her, an inscrutable thought at the forefront of her mind: she wants to see him sick with need.

She releases him to push the waistband down his ass, flesh perfect for grabbing. God, she thinks, he’s beautiful. She could touch him for hours if he’d only let her.

“We don’t--” Casey starts, humming halfway through when he pulls back to sit on his houches, hands on her knees. She takes a moment to just look at him and ingrain the picture in her brain. God. God. She gets to have this. “--have time. The loop might--will break soon.”

In a quite familiar manner, he removes his glasses, folds them, and puts them on the floor. He leans down to kiss her. They end up laying on their sides just kissing, hands trailing over unveiled skin, one of Casey’s legs throws over his hip just so he can come that little bit closer.

Eventually though, she can feel herself growing needy, shivering a little every time his mouth finds her breasts or fingers pinch the pink skin. He seems to know it too. His hand wanders lower, just brushing against her lower lips, teasing.

“You’re so wet,” he mumbles into her lips, as if half-drunk. Casey feels similar -- high on doing what she shouldn’t-but-wants, intoxicated on the smell, touch, feel of him.

She hooks a leg over his hip, and he helps her sit up, until she’s sitting on his hips.

She moves her hips, just rubbing herself on him. He watches her for a very, very long moment, before he says, “Come up here.”

She quirks an eyebrow but the look in his eye is telling.

“Again?” she asks, as she kneels over his face.

“I wasn’t finished before.”  


“You just like it.”

Dennis’ frown lessens when he gives her an amused smirk. “I like watching you.”

Casey doesn’t complain. It’s different then before. She hasn’t really done this but it still feels good, only this time she can move on her own, have him where she wants him at all times, making a right mess out of him. She rides his face until she’s almost there, almost coming, and his face is a reddened sticky mess. Then she lifts up, making him groan.

She catches her breath, slowly moving down to where Dennis had been touching himself. He removes his hand from his cock, and she can see him swallowing as she lifts herself on her knees. Very, very slowly, she lowers herself just to rest her lips on him. Moving her hips like that, feeling him slipping between her folds and brushing against her clit feels good too. There seem to be few things she can do with Dennis that don’t.

Precome pools slowly onto his belly, his cock straining against her. Dennis is big. Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a challenge now. Not when he looks so needy, so ruined, so wrecked by her.

“Casey,” he says, and sounds almost as if he’s going to beg. His voice sends a thrill down her spine. “Casey, please, just--”

He licks his lips, his hands soft on her hips. They could both come like this, she knows. But that’s for another time. Perhaps when they’re able to _ have _more time. Now, she lifts herself and sinks onto him, until she’s twitching around his girth, and Dennis’ fingers are so firm they’re digging bruises into her hips.

Both of them are breathing hard, groaning, as Casey slowly moves. She hasn’t done this before. Dennis, wonderful, beautiful, hot, helps her out, her hands in his until she’s bouncing softly on top of him. He feels so good inside her, her toes curl each time she sinks down on him. Casey almost closes her eyes, her mind feels drowsy and sluggish, but her skin is set afire, but even though everything else around her loses focus, Dennis’ face twisted in pleasure is clear.

She _ has _ to lean down to kiss him even though it ruins the tempo. It’s sloppy, she supposes, more than it should be, but she can taste herself on his lips and she doesn’t mind, not at all. Dennis doesn’t complain at least. She thinks he too feels quite as punch-drunk as she does.

“Casey,” he says, to no apparent reason. He just holds her hips, shifts his legs so he can fuck up into her until she’s moaning into his neck. Somehow, she manages to push herself upright again, to move her hips in tandem with his until she’s riding the fine line of pleasure but with no end.

Eventually, Dennis notices something because their tempo slows down to a brutal grind. His hands guide her hips though she can do nothing more than twitch around his cock she can feel now completely with the way she’s seated on top of him. One of Dennis hands unpeals itself from her hip and presses against her belly. She watches, stuck, completely fucking bound to the movement of his hand that reaches her pussy and presses against her mound before fingers find her clit. Shivers of pleasure rock down her spine and she tightens around him, trying to withstand the pleasure. She moans right there like an animal in heat, hips erratic, grinding onto the feel-good spot, until she’s coming with a beautiful fresh wave of pleasure that has her screwing her eyes shut.

-/

_ Kevin sighs. They can hear the revving of car motors in the distance, the squeaking of wheels, the time ticking down. Casey isn’t sure who is holding whom anymore -- it started, as it usually did, with her hugging him but then it evolved with a reassuring, strong hands, warm grip, clean scent in her nose. Those hands now slide to her shoulders, and when she looks up they reach for her cheeks, so he can place a soft kiss to her forehead. _

_ She touches his cheek, and they sway like that, holding onto each other. Then he gasps, staggers. Blood seeps, untapped wine. _

_ -/ _

They’re on the highway, Claire and Marcia passed out in the back, when Dennis says, “I’m going to take this as a sign that this isn’t supposed to happen.”

His knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Casey can still feel him, inexplicably. The phantom sensation of him between her thighs, inside her, the heat of his skin, the strength of his grip. She imagines there are bruises. She wants them.

He glances at her and does a double take. “Stop,” he says.

“I’m not doing anything.”

As it turns out, neither is Dennis. It’s difficult to avoid her by virtue of them being together in a small place, but Hedwig takes over soon enough, denoting a clear distance. She questions what she’s done, but having a nine-year-old tends to get pretty occupying and if anyone, Hedwig’s been requesting and in need of attention for some time. Casey isn’t the best conversationalist, but she doesn’t have to be; Hedwig talks and talks and talks to fill the hours, be it about his favorite songs or favorite things, and all she really has to do is nod, and smile, or incline her head to show she’s listening. She makes them lunch, ignores the sound of the other two knocking on the doors, and they go play in the living room.

She likes Hedwig. He’s the kid that Kevin couldn’t, and didn’t, get to be. More than ever, she misses Kevin now.

“I think this is the most I’ve been out in _ ages _,” Hedwig says somewhere around nightfall.

“You’re still controlling the light?”

He snorts. “Uh, yeah. Otherwise Barry or Jade or someone would have wanted to come out. I’m not sharing.”

“Well, does it even matter at this point?” she asks.

Hedwig lifts an eyebrow.

“Whatever they do it’s all going to restart anyway.”

The boy considers this and shrugs in a ‘what-can-you-do’ fashion. Then he remembers himself and his previous thought.

“Hey, can I tell you a secret if you tell me a secret?”

“Sure, Hedwig.”

“Kevin, really really _ really _ likes you. But I don’t. Is that weird?”

She chuckles. “No, I don’t thinks so. But I wish I could speak with him.”

His shoulders slump. A moment later he perks up. “Now you tell me your secret.”

“Okay,” she says. “My secret is that I really miss Kevin.”

“That’s not a secret! You always _ say _ you want to talk with him.”

Casey doesn’t think she’s really mentioned him all that much. That being said she replies, “Alright. Then, my secret is that I don’t really know how to end the loops. And I think Mr. Dennis got mad at me for that.”

“Casey,” Hedwig looks at her. “I like you. But your secrets are boring.”

She can’t really say anything to that but laugh.

#### -

She drifts on the couch. It’s barely able to contain Kevin’s bulk, much less both of them, but somehow Hedwig and she make it work via the virtue of him clinging to her and spooning her. The first time he’d done that it was terrifying. Now, she finds comfort in his warmth. Experience changes perception, and right now, Casey isn’t being held my a malevolent killer, or someone she’d like to fuck, but by someone important, someone that requires comfort as much as she does.

She feels hazy as she wakes up. She wonders, in those grey moments, what it means knowing she and Kevin are the same. She wonders if she’s capable of the same violence as the Beast, of the same self-sacrifice as Kevin, the same selfishness as Barry. She feels she is. After all, there are lines connecting a girl holding a shotgun and the Beast. She supposes, pushed too far, she could have done evil.

Still, isn’t that what she’s doing now? Her violence is a prison of time, her self-sacrifice is being stuck in this too, selfishness her wish to change the unchangeable. She ignores two people sentenced to die two doors away from where she lies, and pays them no heed because there are more important things -- and her even-heartedness at their situation is supposed to be telling. She supposes, with no consequences holding her accountable, she might have let herself indulge too much. This whole situation is wrong. Kevin should have never felt weak enough to force Dennis out into the light. And Dennis shouldn’t have had to resort to base, primal, animalistic violence, to try and fix anything.

If anything, Casey thinks, that’s self-violence. She knows it at sight; she’d been wading in those waters. Perhaps, when she hadn’t killed Kevin when he asked her, he took matters into his own hands. There’s nothing easier than following along the nature’s rhythm, and the nature of the human condition has always been to self-destruct spectacularly.

#### -

The breathing behind her changes. The hand that has been holding her hip, a protective measure so she doesn’t fall, now stills, stiffens, and there’s a very long and very deliberate inhale. A nose is at the top of her head, breathing her in. The hand doesn’t move. Dennis.

Liquid heat shoots down to her toes, warming up a path from her cheeks as it goes. Slowly, Dennis lifts himself, finding purchase on her hip, and she turns to look at him. Even dressed in a tracksuit, even without his glasses, she knows the frown. When he sees she’s awake he sighs through his nose. He looks at her, all of her, then turns his head away and licks his lips. He tries to stand but she touches his hand, and it stills.

Their eyes hold together, and for a very long moment they don’t say anything. Then, Dennis sits back onto his haunches, and rubs his head with the free one. Almost desperately, he says, “I’m trying to be good.”

“You _ are _ good,” she replies.

He looks down, and says, “Don’t-- don’t say that just because you want something from me.”

Casey sits up now, sleepiness gone and replaced with an irreparable need to fix this. She needs to make her intentions clear.

“Dennis,” she says, “that’s not it at all. With so many loops we could have-- there were times when we could have done this before. You, or Kevin, or Barry, but we didn’t. And right now, it’s not about that.

“I think you’re _ good _ because you’re trying to protect everyone. You’re persistent in it even though, what, we’d gone about this ten times already? I think you know that kidnapping the girls isn’t right or legal, but I think you weighed the consequences of killing them versus the consequences of letting things continue down the same line, and you decided which path is the best.” She realizes it as she’s saying it. “I think you really want the Beast to fix all of this. Because you want to be good, and want everything to be fine.”

He’s looking at her again, and she sees something vulnerable in his face. She never though that he’d be the one who wasn’t ready for this; or perhaps she’d never thought to read into the reason why the loop broke every time they were together. Clearly, Dennis did.

She offers her hands now, and after a moment, with a shuddering sigh, Dennis lifts himself up to sit properly, and takes them. “You’re okay,” she ends up saying, inevitably, as she presses her face into his shoulder. They stay like that for a long time.

#### -

Casey doesn’t think Dennis has heard a lot of validation in his lifetime. He melts under her hands, malleable, relaxed, perhaps, for the first time. No wonder he lets Dr. Fletcher in every night. She supposes he needs to hear it, even though he knows the consequences.

She understands that. She needed to hear that what she was doing was right, in court, even though she’d gotten herself there in the first place.

What Dennis really wants to do, she realises, is to be close. It’s a brush of their shoulders, fingers on her elbow, sitting together, having a meal together with all the trials and tribulations of his condition, and holding her as she drifts and wakes up from sleep.

It’s a hand, without ulterior motives, warm on her flank, his head on her shoulder, knees tucked into hers. He sighs when she turns her head to kiss his cheek.

They crowd on her small bed and fall asleep.

#### -

The thing that everyone knows about time is that it slips when you’re spending it with someone in whom you enjoy.

#### -

Casey realizes the next day after they’d had lunch and she’d, eventually, ended up resting her feet in his lap, is that she can do silence with him. It’s not the same as with Kevin, but it doesn’t have to be. The only real sound is of the lights, background electricity, and Dennis turning a page.

Casey wanted to be alone for so long that she never realised there could be peace with another person, with little effort on both of their parts. She doesn’t have to do anything, after all. She just lies on the couch, breathing. Existing. And that’s okay. That seems to be appreciated.

Eventually, Dennis shuts the book, folds his glasses, and places both on the coffee table. He shifts and she accommodates until he’s resting between the back of the couch and her body, face pressed into her hip and belly. She touches him then, slowly massaging infinites into his temples, tracing his cheek, touching his neck. He lets her. He mellows into it, a large machine powering down.

#### -

Casey drifts into consciousness with soft kisses pressed into her shoulder. For a moment she doesn’t know what to do with the feelings in her chest: it’s like a chalice has been filling inside her and now, it’s filled to the brim, belly satiated -- and still Dennis keeps pouring wine inside, still he offers food that she can’t help but take.

The feeling dissipates slowly, the chalice expanding. She breathes, comfortable, as his hands trace over her skin. She hums in question, turning her head towards him, and is given a kiss on the lips. She smiles into it, and he smiles back at her. There’s a moment where he lets her touch his brow, smoothing out the perpetual frown.

He’s looking at her, blue eyes giving into the black. His eyes are kind. They make her feel as if she’s safe, and wanted, and cared for, like water cupped into his hands, a secret only the two of them know. He kisses her again and this time she can feel the intent when she shifts, the hard line of him pressing into her back.

She feels like she has to whisper when she asks, only a breath separating their mouths, “You’re allowed to want this, you know?”

“Yeah,” he says after a beat. Despite it, he sounds as if he’s just realised that.

He repeats himself when he kisses her, harder this time, his touch turning intentional, as it lays on her belly. “The question becomes, do you want it too?”

“Yeah,” she chuckles softly, laying back into her original position.

He kisses her shoulder, her neck, and it goes from there. Despite her quick beating heart, she feels halfway to asleep, especially with Dennis’ warm hand on her. He touches her belly, her flank, her breasts, before he moves lower. It’s easy to accommodate when he peels away her leggings and underwear, to shudder when his rough fingers touch her folds, wet. She isn’t sure how much time passess between him touching her, just his fingers spreading wetness over her pussy, circling her clit, sending jolts of electricity up her spine. All she knows is that when he pulls away his fingers are wet and sticky, that she’s throbbing with need, and that he’s folding her leg, holding it in a knee before he’s sinking inside her.

His groan is overshadowed by her gasp. The pleasure isn’t sharp, nor as necessary as it was before. This is a slow tide, creeping up on her. It’s waves of it, lapping at her mind, the point of which isn’t for a cresting wave, but for a complete flood; the point is to prolong it as much as possible just because it feels _ that _ good.

She wishes they could do this differently, have more time, where she could just touch him for hours on end. She wishes the loop wouldn’t keep breaking. They aren’t supposed to do this really, not with previous experience, but she wants it and it’s difficult to stop herself when the only consequence is mild and on her part.

Dennis gives one sharp thrust, then another, and she very nearly mewls. His cock is hitting her just right, just where it feels good. It must mean he’s nearing his own peak. It doesn’t matter, not really, not when he keeps doing it, and her thighs are starting to tremble. She sneaks a hand down and start touching herself, breath turned quick and uneven.

“I’m going to-- I’m gonna--” she pants and is silenced with a harsh kiss. His hand on her thigh isn’t cruel but it’s strong, reliable. She moans into his mouth.

Something explodes. For a moment the noise is unintelligible. She convulses, trembling around Dennis’ cock as he gives into the need and fucks into her, harsh and sharp, and just the way she needs to ride her orgasm.

She’s panting when Dennis lifts himself up, pushes her down to lay on the couch and slides between her legs, tugging her by the ankles. His cock lays over her pussy, heavy and warm and pulsing, and she watches the way he licks his lips, teases his way back into her. If this doesn’t end soon, Casey thinks, sighing when he bottoms out, Dennis will end up coming soon, probably, inside her. The thought it far from distasteful. It doesn’t matter anyway.

The noise repeats after a bout of silence and she realises it’s Dennis phone. He groans, frustrated, and grabs for it to, if nothing else, silence it. He stills.

“It’s Dr. Fletcher,” he says.

It’s already gotten that late. Which means that Dennis should be getting ready to go meet the Beast. He seems to realise it too because he looks at her, as if suddenly trapped between two fires.

“It’s ok,” she says, patting his shoulder.

He slides out of her and is quick to right his clothes and get onto his feet so he can answer the phone. Casey needs to grab a couple of breaths first. The lingering sensation of sex is delicious, but the euphoria is fading. Still, Dennis is looking at her, eating her with his eyes.

Casey manages to straighten out her clothes, get up and look presentable by the time Dennis comes back with Dr. Fletcher.

“Oh, you should have said you had guests, I wouldn’t have intruded,” Dr. Fletcher says when she takes notice of Casey.

“No, it’s alright,” Dennis says. “Dr. Fletcher this is Casey. She’s a good friend of mine.”

Dr. Fletcher shakes Casey’s hand.

Dennis has put his jacket on, and says to Casey, “I have to--”

Casey nods. “Yeah no, go.”

Dennis, perhaps impulse driven by what they did just minutes before, leans in to give her forehead a kiss, touching her shoulder, before he apologises to Dr. Fletcher and makes a hasty retreat.

Casey looks at Dr. Fletcher and smiles. “Sorry about that. He has an appointment. Hopefully, you’ll do okay with me?”

“Well, I am always interested in meeting friends of Kevin and the other personalities. I assume you’re aware of Kevin’s condition?”

“I am,” she replies. Casey remembers how to be a host and offers coffee, tea, and fishes out the fruit salad she’s been eating the past ten loops, before they settle in at the kitchen table.

“It’s remarkable with what ease you seem to have accepted it. People usually need a bit of time to understand what’s going on,” Dr. Karen says. While her eyes are half kind and half careful, her soft smile is real.

Casey, at once, understands why Kevin likes her.

“I had time to adjust,” she replies with something more forced.

Dr. Fletcher hums. “Forgive me, if this is rude, but I’ve never heard Kevin or the other personalities really mentioning you.”

“That’s alright, I'm a fairly new addition,” she replies. “You’ve known them for a long time. Ten years?”

“Yes. Did Dennis talk about therapy?”

Kevin did, a long time ago now. But only just.

“I’ve always been curious how come there’s so many of them.”

“Oh well,” Dr. Fletcher blinks, she shifts. She must have expected an answer. “A child’s mind is very malleable. If they’re abused incredibly early in their life the main personality, the psyche, can’t handle certain things, which is when alters, like Dennis, appear to help. They tend to block out those memories, to protect the mind and the body. The last time Kevin and I spoke, which if I recall, was over two years ago, was after we got to his part of the history when he was abused. He had no memories of it you see, but facing his past would have helped him live with his alters.“

“He wasn’t ready,” Casey guesses. Kevin had regretted that too. He’d been on a bus, one way ticket out of Philadelphia. She supposes Barry had put his foot down then. Stable jobs weren’t just handed out.

“No. He retreated into himself after that. Did you talk to him?”

“No,” she says, “not really.” She wishes she did though. “So all of his personalities are made when he was a child?”

“Yes. It’s usually why there are fewer than 23. Children construct them of what they know so fairies, goblins, werewolves, even dogs and cats. And when they grow older, the firm up. You can draw of wet concrete, but not dry one.”

“So it’s not possible for more to emerge?”

“No,” Dr. Fletcher shakes her head. Her eyes narrow. “Why? Has he been mentioning someone?”

Casey remains quiet, if only because she has just realised one thing: the Beast is inevitable, not because he is a spirit of vengeance, but because he has been there all along. He has been with Kevin since he was a child. Perhaps unacknowledged, yes, unknown to others, but he has always been there. Patricia was right. Casey had been denying a part of Kevin, of them, even if she didn’t know it.

“You know your appearance is strikingly similar to one of the missing girls, on the TV,” Dr. Fletcher says, eyes sharp and knowing.

Casey forgot about that. She looks at Dr. Fletcher and remains mum.

“If you are one of them, then I understand if you’re scared. Did Dennis harm you in any way?”

Casey shakes her head.

“Do you feel any particularly strong emotions towards him? To please him? Emotions of love?”

Casey feels amusement at that. Not any more than she felt it before, in the first loop. Now, though, she feels cared for. She feels held by him.

“I am here of my own free will, Dr. Fletcher.”

Dr. Fletcher sighs, a shuddering nervous sigh. “Did you help him? Where are the other girls?”

“They’re okay. Probably just scared.”

That seems to spook Dr. Fletcher all the more. “What do you intend to do with them?”

Casey licks her lips. “Hopefully, nothing.” If she can prove to Dennis that the Beast is already within him, within Kevin, he won’t have to kill to bring him out.

“Hopefully? Casey, this is an egregious wrong!” she says, and unable to sit any longer she stands, pushing her chair back, demanding reason. “I need you to see that alright? And we need to help you and the others girls get out of here.”

It takes Casey a moment to comprehend that this is the same reality as the one half an hour ago where she was held by Dennis, and the same one two hours ago when he’d clung to her. The shift isn’t gradual, it’s being dropped into deep water.

Remaining calm, which is the one thing she has always known to do, she asks,“Why would he take us?”

“Excuse me?”

“Out of everyone he could take. He said Patricia told him what to look for, but he selected us.”

“Young women are generally easy--”

“No,” Casey interrupts. “It can’t be that. We had an adult man with us. Predators usually go for easier prey. Children.”

Dr. Fletcher shifts on her feet, her eyes, not so subtly, glancing towards the clock hanging above the entrance.

“I wish I could answer but we don’t have time for this Casey. Who did Dennis go out to meet?”

“You can’t leave, I’m the only one with the keys,” Casey says. She never thought she’d resort to blackmail and yet it doesn’t feel so difficult now. “Tell me.”

Dr. Fletcher huffs, but she has her priorities straight which, in this case, means getting the hell out of the zoo.

“It could be connected to his past trauma experiences at the hands of women.”

“Trauma. Kevin’s mother abused him. I know that. But what could have someone my age done to him?”

“There was an incident at work, a few months ago: two young women put his hands on their breasts, and ran away laughing. That’s sexual harassment. It could have very well triggered Dennis to surface, considering he’s the proverbial shield against the world.”

Casey considers this but only for a moment. Realization doesn’t dawn-- it’s cold and horrid. If Dennis is there to protect Kevin, and woke due to sexual harassment it means that she and Kevin really are similar; his mother didn’t only beat him.

She was right, wondering why the Beast didn’t go for women similar to Kevin’s mother -- he did. It’s a simple case of transference. To get revenge on her, something he couldn’t do in the beginning, and something he can’t do now she being dead the past ten years, he’s exuding violence on those who, he sees, threatened him the same way. He’s getting his revenge on his mother by killing the girls.

In the first loop, he’d been getting his revenge over and over again, with no end. There _ was _ no end. There was never supposed to be one-- Casey _ knows _ that hate and it never really burns out. Sooner would have Kevin died than gotten it all out of his system.

“Casey?” Dr. Fletcher’s voice filters in, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Who did Dennis go out to meet?”

“The Beast.”

“The Beast is a fragment of imagination,” Dr. Fletcher says. “He can’t be real. We need to leave. I can’t bear witness to anyone coming to harm, and I won’t be responsible for you, or any of the girls, dying. Casey, please, it’s better to stop this before it’s even started. Kevin needs help now. Whatever happened to him, those young women don’t deserve to- to _ die _ .”   


“Nobody deserves anything. And I haven’t earned what I got.”

Despite this, Casey stands up and takes the keys. She needs to talk with Kevin, now, more than ever. She leads Dr. Fletcher to the other room, and unlocks the doors where she used to be kept with Claire and Marcia.

Dr. Fletcher walks in, shaking, shocked, and it’s simple to close the doors behind her. She leaves before she can hear them realising they’re locked in. She can’t have them running away. She can’t have Dr. Fletcher dying either.

Casey’s in the hallway when she feels chills running down her spine, hairs standing on end. A moment later she hears soft patter of feet. She doesn’t have to turn to know the Beast is there, in front of her.

Still, she turns, and watches as he advances, eyes blood-shot, skin clammy and littered with pronounced veins, mouth twisted in a perpetual growl, teeth bared. The heat radiating from him, when he stops in front of her, is strangely pleasant. She knows his skin is hot. She hugged him, touched him, enough times to know this.

She isn’t afraid. She looks him in the eye, and lets him crowd into her, face nuzzling her hair, her cheek, her neck.

“You smell of me,” he growls. His hands flex, for a moment, before they go to her hips. “You smell like mine.”

His hand is rough where he places it on her belly. She gasps, and feels, mortifyingly enough, her thighs smarting in a rather telling way.

“Let me talk to Kevin,” she says, as the Beast very nearly coils around her.

He huffs, loud, akin to a large cat. “You always want to talk with Kevin.”

She frowns, pulling away to look at him, confused. He presses his palm over her mouth before she can open it.

“Don’t say his name,” The Beast says. “Hurts.”

There’s a moment in which he lingers, just looking at her. Then he closes his eyes and the veins recede, the heat dissipates, and his shoulders, it seems like, grow smaller even if it’s just a posture change. He lowers his hand and when she looks at him, it’s the blue eyes she’s been waiting for that look back at her.

“Oh,” Kevin says, “It’s you-- you look different.”

Casey feels tears welling up in her eyes: relief, at finally speaking with him, and terrible sadness, knowing all of their history will never come back.

“Don’t-- why are you crying? Hey, Casey, come on.” He hugs her then, holds her in the way only he really does, and she feels, finally, as if she doesn’t have to be strong anymore.

“Shh,” he says as she works through all the emotions she’s been keeping close to her chest. After a while, he looks around and says, “Where- where are we exactly?”

“In the hallway,” she replies, dumbly. She pulls away, wipes her face, and would feel embarrassed if it were anyone but him. Even though he doesn’t remember her.

“Oh, right,” he says. He’s looking around as if he hasn’t seen the place in a long time. He hasn’t really, two years. “It’s just...different. I-- wasn’t I in the hospital, before?”

Casey looks up at him. “What?”

“You were there too,” he says. “With that woman. Right? I’m not-- making it up?”

Casey feels her legs going weak, and she realises: she never told Hedwig about her scars -- only Patricia and she doubts she would have told the child anything; she never told Dennis about her uncle -- she told Kevin in the first loop; she didn’t ask the Beast to talk to Kevin at _ all _. She realises, quite suddenly, painfully, wretchedly, that Kevin remembers her. Or, at least, remembers parts of his time within the first loop.

“You were,” she says, breath hard to come by. “Kevin, I need you to know something, okay? I need you to know that my uncle is in jail now. I put him there.”

“I know? You’ve told me this before, Casey.”

She laughs, holding their hands entwined. “I’m sorry you couldn’t get justice for what happened to you. You can’t go back and put your mother behind bars. But you know what you can do? You can say fuck her, and try and live your life despite her.”

Kevin is shaking. He nods, and says, “The Beast? Did you manage to stop him?”

“Kevin he is all your anger. He wants to get revenge, for you, onto the person who did it most. The only one who can stop him is you.”

“Wait what do you mean,what--”

“The alters were there to protect you from bad experiences you couldn’t handle as a child. But the pain of what happened is still there.” She touches the middle of his chest where his heart should be. “When you’re ready to deal with your past, you can only then get past it. Do you think you can do that?”

“I’m...I’m not strong enough, Casey.” Kevin sounds as if he’s pleading. He sounds somewhere in the middle, between the man she has grown to know and the man she met the first time, the man who told her to kill him.

Casey sqeezes his hand. “You are. And I’ll be here for you. I’ll always be here for you. No matter how much time it takes.”

He shifts, and she sees it’s Dennis in the light.

“You knew.” It sounds like an accusation even though she didn’t want it to be one.

Dennis’ face is guilty. “Let’s sit down,” he offers.

She shakes her head, refuses, even when he puts a calming hand on her arm.

“I’ve been remembering bits and pieces. Like dreams. Like very old memories.”

She nods. “From the start?”

“No. Recently. Since we--” he trails off. “I think it was Hedwig who pointed it out first. Patricia went quiet after that. Casey, what you just said to Kevin--”

She wishes she had the time to feel betrayed. She wishes she could feel angry with him at all. But as much as she could, once, be angry with herself, that’s as little as she can be angry with them now.

She sighs, tired, defeated, feeling smaller than ever. “The Beast didn’t just emerge. He was always there within you. Dr. Fletcher told me about those girls. They made you come out didn’t they? And the only one who hurt you in the same way before then was your mother. That’s why you kidnapped us. That’s why Patricia told you who to look for. You just. Wanted to punish her for what she did, with the Beast, through us.”

“When...” Dennis sighs. “Kevin can’t know about the past. It hurt him trying. Barry had to take over when he was on that bus. He just-- didn’t want to live. He was going to do something stupid. I was trying to fix that.”

Casey feels her gut twisting, and she thinks it’s because she’s hurting right now. It grows though, and grows, and she staggers so Dennis has to catch her.

“There’s nothing left to fix,” she says. “Dr. Fletcher is alive and she can help Kevin. She can, at least, help you find a better therapist. Kevin _ has _to face the past. And you can be there to help him, support him. Every one of you. And I’ll be here too.”

He picks her up, slowly, as if she were a child.

“Where _ is _Karen?”

“In the room with the other two.”

He carries her through the rooms, weighing to him nothing at all. He opens the doors and she can hear Dr. Fletcher’s gasp.

“What did you do to her?”

“Nothing, she’s ill,” Dennis replies. He stoppers the doors. “Come on,” he instructs, “I’m letting you go.”

There’s a moment of hesitation, one Dennis doesn’t have patience for. “Dr. Fletcher, please. I know what you will have to do. I understand the consequences.”

He turns around then and she can see them over his shoulder. He opens the other doors as well and goes to the living room where they can curl up on the couch.

“Is it the loop?” he asks.

She nods. She feels glass in her throat and when she coughs there’s blood.

He pets her hair, gentle, warm.

“This is the last time,” he promises, and kisses her head.

Casey closes her eyes.

#### -

Casey opens her eyes. She’s sitting in the passenger seat, the front dashboard in front of her messy with paper and garbage. Behind her, Claire and Marcia giggle as they watch a video. Casey takes a breath and opens the doors.

Mr. Benoit looks up from where he’s putting away the bags and asks, “Something wrong, Casey?”

“I’ll be walking after all, thank you,” she says. Mr. Benoit puts the food away, closes the trunk and insists, “Are you sure? Look, I would feel better if I knew you were delivered home safely, alright?”

She sees Dennis moving towards. Mr. Benoit stiffens, but Casey sighs in relief. The lie is ready on her tongue, but the smile is genuine.

“Dennis,” she says, voice filled with true relief. She offers her hand for show and he shakes it, picking up the cues. Out of politeness, he introduces himself to Mr. Benoit and says, “I’m a friend of her uncle. Casey, you okay?”

“Yeah, Mr. Benoit was offering me a ride home.”

“I can drive you home,” he says. “I need to talk with John anyway.”

Casey notices how Mr. Benoit’s shoulders unwind, wariness leaving his face. He looks at her when she says, “That sounds great, thank you. Thanks for the offer Mr. Benoit. I’ll see you around.”

“Alright then, take care,” he says, and she knows his gaze lingers as they move through the parking lot until they’re inside Dennis’ car. They watch as Mr. Benoit drives away. She turns to Dennis, who smiles at her, and watches as he hands the light over to Miss Patricia.

“You’re a very smart girl, aren’t you?” she asks, and she looks almost confused by it. She folds Dennis’ glasses and puts them in the front pocket of his slacks.

They get out of the car and head for the mall.

“You see, when Kevin knows something, at least one of us knows it as well,” she explains. “The Beast isn’t in that train yard anymore. He has a seat now, with the rest of us.”

She stops Casey in front of the sliding doors. She brushes her hair back behind an ear, smile true, nearly proud. “Well done.”

Casey watches as, instead of Miss Patricia, it’s Kevin who sits in the light. His smile is tentative at first, but when she opens her arms he reaches out and wraps her in his.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hi,” he replies, chuckling softly. “You’re still here.”

“I said I would be.”

He pulls back to kiss her forehead. “Thank you.”

It’s simple to take his hand and for the two of them to walk into the mall. They get coffee, she supposes, like normal people would, and sit down at the 2nd floor cafe, in a corner so as to not be overheard.

“For the sake of sounding redundant -- you look different,” he says, and they both laugh at that.

“You look different too,” she replies. He does. He looks relieved for one. Lighter than she’s ever seen him before.

“That’s thanks to you. Not bleeding this time too, which is a change.”

“You remember?”

“Yeah, when I came to all my memories from the previous loop were there.” His smile is still there when he looks at her and says, “I thought I told you to let me go.”

She smiles. “That wasn’t an option.”

“Thank you.”

They drink their coffee. Casey gives him space and Kevin eventually finds his bravery and his words.

“The alters,” he starts, “the system really, has always been here to help me. In whatever way they think that help has to take shape. I couldn’t handle the fact of what...happened to me.”

“Dr. Fletcher cares about you very much,” she reminds him. “I think she cares more than she should be.”

  
“Yeah,” he chuckles. “Maybe it’s time to find another therapist. But I’d still want to have her around.”

“You can do anything you like, Kevin.”

“I...you’re right. When I think how miserable I was in that hospital, the situation right now doesn’t seem so horrible.”

She huffs out a laugh. Perspective. It’s always like that.

Kevin’s mouth twists into a mirroring smile that fades as he says, “What about you? I can do anything I like now, but you still have to deal with your uncle now. Again.”

She stills. She’s not considered that. Sure she knew about it, but now, faced with it, she takes a very deep breath. If she did it once, she knows she can do it again.

“You don’t have to go through it alone again,” Kevin says. “I will be there with you, if you’ll have me.”

“All of you?”

Kevin raises an eyebrow then laughs. “Yes, everyone of me.”

“Then,” she says, “I’d like to finish my coffee. And then I’d like you to take me to the police station.”

He looks at her with knowing eyes. “Alright.” Then, he adds, “You didn’t think what to do after the loop was over, did you?”

She admits to it by shaking her head. “I’m going to have to finish high school. Go turn eighteen again. And you?”

“I think I’ll start with finding a better therapist. There’s time for the rest.”

#### -


End file.
